


Game Over

by Pixel_Shipper



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: (For now. Might continue if there's interest.), Gen, Hopeful Ending, Oneshot, POV Third Person Limited, Permanent Injury, Possession, Time Travel, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26118352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixel_Shipper/pseuds/Pixel_Shipper
Summary: Robin is unable to break free of Grima's possession, and Lucina is faced with seeing the timeline she'd hoped to save collapse just like the one she'd come from.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Game Over

She’d failed.

Lucina looked in horror as Robin’s- no, Grima’s- spell pierced through her father’s heart.

Her father’s body fell to the ground as Grima let out a laugh. A laugh she knew all too well.

Had it all been for nothing? All the pain she’d gone through in this timeline and the one she came from, just to see her father die again right before her eyes. Just to see the beginning of the same terrible future she’d lived in before.

Grima was gloating now. Something about her failure, almost certainly, but she couldn’t make out the words through the tears in her eyes. She could see everyone around her still working through their shock. The people from this timeline had clear horror on their faces, but it was nothing compared to her fellow time travellers. Even Inigo’s smile had fallen.

Fallen. Just like her father, lying there motionless at Grima’s feet.

Lucina tried to run towards him, away from Grima, anywhere, but her body wouldn’t listen to her. It was like she was floating, unable to do anything but watch as the Fell Dragon readied another spell, this one clearly aimed at her…

There was a pressure on her body, and suddenly her legs were moving. The crackle of magical electricity, another scream… she’d heard so many screams in her life. This one was coming from her right, a simple two syllables that she knew so well.

“OWAIN!”

It was followed by the crackle of flame, then silence. Lucina turned her head and saw her cousin standing next to her, clutching his chest and looking away from the place they’d left… had they already travelled so far from the Dragon’s Table?

“I’m… I’m fine,” Owain choked out. “It didn’t hit, anything vital, I’m…”

Lucina pulled him close. “No.”

_You’re not fine. No one’s fine._

Her fingers ran over his tunic, searching for a tear or burn that would indicate the point of entry. There wasn’t anything on his chest…

Owain gave her a pained smile, or she thought it was a smile, and it had to be pained, and he lifted her hand, moving it to his right upper arm. There, her fingers met with a pinched spot, sleeve burned and melted to the feverish skin. Her own face grimaced in unison with Owain’s as she touched it.

Fearing the worst, Lucina moved her hand a little lower. “Can you…?”

Owain shook his head.

They didn’t have time to wonder if it would be permanent. All they could do was start running again, as far from the Table as they could. Lucina thanked Naga with everything she had that the spell that had hit Owain had been lightning magic, so they wouldn’t have to worry about stopping the bleeding.

It was light by the time they stopped again. They’d barely been paying attention to which way they were going, but it seemed that by chance they’d managed to reach the Ylissean border. Lucina allowed herself a deep breath, then turned to Owain.

“I do not believe that we’re in immediate danger here. May I see your wound again?”

Owain put on his smile again and nodded. “Of course! But never fear: the legendary hero is- OW!”

Lucina gritted her teeth. “I know it hurts, but we can’t allow your shirt to stay stuck to you like this. Do you want it to get infected?”

Suddenly, she was standing several feet away, her dagger still in hand. Brady was next to her, putting away what must have been a rescue staff as he glared at her.

“Are ya fuckin’ nuts? Yer gonna get it infected doing that! Ya gotta cut around the- lemme at ‘im.”

Lucina just stood there blankly as Brady walked over to Owain. It took her a few minutes before she realized that maybe she should follow him.

Apparently Brady had been waiting for that, since he grabbed her arm as soon as she got close and started talking to her as he cut around Owain’s wound.

“If ya cut off the part that’s stuck to the skin, yer gonna end up opening it up to the shit that makes it get gross. See, ya just gotta cut around that part as close as ya can, and then we can take it off.”

Owain turned his head to look over. “Wait. How did you find us, Brady?”

That was a good point. Lucina lifted an eyebrow, waiting for Brady to speak.

“Well, y'see, once the two of ya ran off, it all went down the crapper. Think it was only us folks who’d seen this shit before that thought to run, and…”

Brady trailed off as the clunk of pegasus hooves landing on the ground was heard. Cynthia dismounted and ran over.

“And everyone started looking for you so we could get together again! Just because we failed once doesn’t mean we can’t try again in a new timeline, right? I got Gerome roped in to at least help get everyone together, so he and Minerva should be here soon too!”

There were the sounds of two more people dismounting, and Severa and Laurent walked over to join the group. Severa made a face at Owain’s burn, but said nothing.

Lucina almost wished she had said something, but no one said a word for what felt like hours until Gerome and Minerva landed, Minerva carrying Yarne and Kjelle in her claws. Behind them was Nah in dragon form with Noire and Morgan clutching tightly onto her back.

Was that everyone? It felt to Lucina like someone was missing as the new arrivals dismounted (and transformed back in Nah’s case) and joined them.

Owain frowned, looking at the small crowd they had gathered. “Wait, where’s Inigo?”

“Dead,” Gerome said bluntly. “Threw himself in front of one of Grima’s spells and got himself killed.”

Noire glared at Gerome. “HE DIED SHIELDING ME! DO NOT SPEAK ILL OF HIS SACRIFICE, OR YOU SHALL PAY FOR IT THOUSANDFOLD!”

There was another moment of silence. Lucina could feel the weight of it crushing down upon her. With everything that had happened since she and Owain had run from the Dragon’s Table, she’d almost forgotten how much danger they’d all been in there. The last time she’d seen Inigo had been when his smile had faltered at the sight of the Fell Dragon, and now it would never be there again. Just another failure to add to her long list of failures.

“Lucina?” It was Morgan who spoke this time. “You said you, I mean, we… we used some sort of ritual to go back in time last time, right?”

Lucina nodded. “If you’re asking if we will be able to use it again… well, we’ll have to see. But I believe that if we try we’ll be able to go back again. We can forge the right future this time.”

She smiled, trying to call to mind the way Inigo had done it before. It had to look fake, though. There was no way anyone believed her…

There was a hand on her shoulder. Severa had moved to stand next to her. “Look, you know I’m not the kind of person who just wants to believe in everything for no reason. But giving up now’s just going to let everything get worse again. If there’s any chance at all, we need to try.”

Owain grinned, moving the hand from the arm he still had sensation in to cover his face. “The heroes of legend will never be stopped by a single failure! Together, we can reach the bright future we couldn’t make it to before!”

“YES!” Cynthia pumped a fist in the air. “I couldn’t have said it better myself!”

“If I stay here, that’s just a quick trip to extinction, and I can’t risk that. And I’d just reunited with Mom and…” Yarne trailed off, giving a small whimper.

“I-if Inigo were here… he’d want to see the pretty girls in the new timeline… a-and I want… I want to have another chance…” Noire seemed to be back to her regular self, rather than the “blood and thunder” alter ego. She clutched her bow tightly, backing up to the edge of the group.

“Dammit, I can’t… can’t let this be the last time I see Ma.” Brady seemed to be choking back tears. “Havin’ her die once was more than bad enough. If there’s anything we can do…”

“Ren…” Morgan scrunched their face in pain. “I can’t believe that this bad future is… is because of them. We’ve gotta find a better way.”

“It would be fallacious to assume that a single failure is indicative of an entirely futile endeavor. Given that we may have the resources at our disposal to make a second attempt, to decide that we cannot succeed would be an asinine conclusion.” Lucina wasn’t entirely certain about what all of those words meant, but it was fairly easy to get the gist of Laurent’s meaning.

“I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t been said already, but I’m with you.” Kjelle lowered her chin determinedly. “We’ll just take this chance to save the ones we lost this time around.”

Nah nodded. “I’m in. And I’m sure Gerome’s in too, if he’s not interested in being eaten.”

It was pretty easy for Lucina to guess that Gerome was glowering behind his mask.

“Fine,” he finally said. “But we’ve all seen what tampering with the future leads to. I’m coming to get Minerva to a better place, and that’s it.”

So that was it. It was almost like how they’d started everything out, back in the timeline they’d come from, when all of them were still there. With any luck, that hope they’d rekindled wouldn’t be extinguished yet again.


End file.
